Article II: Concerning Desires

— Notion and morality of desire. Desire, as we saw above, carries with itself some intention of execution; or, besides love, it says some intention, absolute or conditional.

1. Absolute desire, by which the will consents into a sin to be perpetrated at some time, necessarily participates in the theological and moral species of the exterior act toward which it is borne. This is clear from St. Matt. 5, 28 itself: "Whoever shall have looked upon a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart." And the reason is manifest: an interior act draws its goodness and malice from the external act, as from its object.

2. Conditional desire will be sinful or not, according as the malice remains in the object or is taken away from it. The reason is that although conditional desire effects nothing exterior, nevertheless it places in the will an affection for the action: therefore of what sort the fault would be to execute it, of that sort it will be to love it.

Wherefore, made under the condition "if it were not prohibited," or in the state in which these acts are lawful, desires concerning things prohibited by positive law alone are innocent in themselves: I would eat meat on Friday, unless the Church forbade it; concerning things lawful by natural law in some case or state: I would kill Peter, if God commanded it to me; I would hang a thief, if I were a judge; I would marry a wife, unless I were a priest. Yet observe that these idle desires become dangerous in many things.

On the contrary, these are evil: if there were no hell, I would commit adultery; if I were not a religious, I would fornicate; if I had no account of my state, I would avenge an injury, I would kill you; indeed also these others (although some perhaps have contradicted): if it were not a sin, I would fornicate, I would despoil the rich, etc. Provided, however, that by all these you signify a present voluntary affection, and not merely a natural propensity or that which in another age, in another state, in another religious faith, you would have done.